"Army General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA, said during a conference in New York on Aug. 8 that 'no one has willfully or knowingly disobeyed the law or tried to invade your civil liberties or privacy.'

"Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, have defended the NSA.

"Feinstein said in an Aug. 16 statement that her committee 'has never identified an instance in which the NSA has intentionally abused its authority to conduct surveillance for inappropriate purposes.'"

Bloomberg concedes that the officials may have been speaking narrowly about violations of Patriot Act or FISA laws.

As we noted back in July, Alexander defended the NSA during a hacking conference in Las Vegas. He was adamant about accusations against his analysts, even dropping a choice word in their defense.

"We get all these allegations of what [NSA staff] could be doing," Alexander said. "But when people check what the NSA is doing, they've found zero times that's happened. And that's no bulls—t. Those are the facts."